Title: The Quality of Search Methodology and Search Reporting in Published Systematic Reviews of Economic Evaluations: Search Sources
Abstract: The economic evaluation of health care interventions is now an accepted element of health care decision-making and priority-setting. As the number of published economic evaluations has grown, so has the number of systematic reviews of economic evaluations. However, the quality of search methodology used in recent reviews has not been widely investigated. This study sought to identify which search resources are being used to identify studies in recent, published systematic reviews of economic evaluations, and to investigate whether choice of resources reflects current recommendations for the conduct of such reviews. A search to identify systematic reviews of economic evaluations published since January 2013 was undertaken in MEDLINE. Two reviewers extracted the following information from reviews which met the inclusion criteria: general medical literature databases searched, specialist economic databases searched, health technology assessment sources searched, supplementary search techniques used. Results were compared against the search resources recommended by NICE when searching for economic evidence for single technology appraisals, and the summary of current best evidence provided in Sure Info (http://vortal.htai.org/?q=node/336). Sixty-five systematic reviews met the inclusion criteria; 23 of these could not be accessed in full text, data was extracted from 42 reviews. Five reviews (12%) met or exceeded the search resources recommended by NICE (MEDLINE, Embase, NHS EED, EconLit). Nine reviews (21%) searched at least four of the six types of resource recommended by Sure Info (specialist economic databases, general databases, HTA databases, webpages of HTA agencies, grey literature, collections of utility studies). None of the reviews searched all six. Although all reviews explicitly described the resources searched, reporting frequently contained errors or lack of clarity in the names of databases and interfaces. The information resources used to identify evidence for the majority of recently published systematic reviews of economic evaluations do not conform to current recommendations.